The ugliest car in the world was produced in West Germany

9 October 2019

Hoffmann Auto-Kabine is one of the most ugly and clumsy cars in history.

Recently in the network often hold ratings on the ugliest car. There is no doubt that Hoffmann Auto-Kabine a worthy candidate for the zavanie very, very unsightly car, at least in the segment of microcare.

Generally mark Hoffmann-Werke Lintorf, founded by Jakob Oswald Hoffmancom in 1945 in Linthorpe – North-West of the city of Ratingen, in turn, is located near Dusseldorf, virtually unknown to the vast majority of people, even those who consider themselves expert in the history of the automotive industry.
ABOK Hoffman moved production of bicycles in Lintorf after the war, and since 1948 has engaged in the production of motorcycles with two-stroke motors MOT volume from 125 to 250 cm3, and a year later they were joined by popular Vespa that Hoffman produced under license. Until 1954 it was produced at least 60 thousand of these two-wheeled machines. Where's the scooter, there is kabinenroller, i.e. a little micro-car with closed body and motorolleri units, which were very popular in the impoverished post-war Western Europe as an individual means of transport.

Hoffman's attempt to create in 1951 own original kabinenroller with the original bodywork gave nothing – the prototype was ugly and frankly crude.


He was fitted with a two-stroke with a 6.5-horsepower motorcycle engine, mounted in motoroleriu on the rear wheel that was steering at the same time.



The maximum speed of kabinenroller not exceed 45 km/h, but it seems that it was madness that can be seen from the video of the automobile journalist Jason Torchinsky.
At the end of 1954 Hoffman made a mistake with the commercialization of kabinenroller Kabine 250 in the form of accurate copies of the Iso Isetta without a license, although the "booths" Hoffman exotic front door with attached to it a folding steering column of the Italian prototypes were replaced by a single side (passenger side), opened against the move.

Later version of the Auto-Kabine received the doors from both sides, but this did not save Hoffman from the trial with the Bavarian firm BMW, the copyright holder of the license to produce the Isetta in Germany, which was able to win. Hoffman produced only about a hundred kabinenroller Auto-Kabine 250.

In a Domino effect that gave rise to the Italian firm Piaggio, which produces the "a Vespa", to deny Hoffman the license to produce Vespa (say, that actually the Italians were scared of a more powerful version of Hoffman), and he is seriously invested in developing a new motorcycle Gouverneur and more powerful version of the Vespa, then it is inhabited by the creditors and the firm went bankrupt.

PS the Idea to make a steerable rear wheel (rear wheel) tried to implement in several countries (including the US) in the 1920-1950's, but nothing good came out of the machine was practically uncontrollable and unstable. Well, kabinenroller, having gone through several veletov and downs might be, for example, via China.
P. P. S. Attempt to enter the automotive segment actually cost Jacob Hoffman it up quite a successful business in those years in Germany for more monopolizirovany car market not as businessmen have failed. What is the incident a few years later, the story of Carl Borgward, which actually took him quite competitive company Borgward (brands Borgward, Hansa, Lloyd and Goliaер), and a "responsible" management policies obankrochennogo the firm gave, of course, the BMW, which then was just gone from the issue of kabinenroller to normal cars. But a miniature BMW Isetta helped in the 1960s, eight East Germans escape to West Berlin, of course, in a modified form and one at a time.
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